Multiple sources involved in the ongoing transaction said TPG's reluctance to agree to the higher valuation has led Ahuja, a telecom industry veteran and former CEO of Orange SA and LightSquared Inc., to reach out to others.

Initial feelers from Tillman have already gone out to Mubadala, the investment company of the Abu Dhabi government, Farallon Capital Management LLC and Carlyle, said one of the sources mentioned above on condition of anonymity as the information is private. Some of the large domestic NBFCs have also been tapped but those discussions have not progressed further. Ahuja is the chairman and CEO of Tillman Global Holdings (TGH) - a four year old, US-based investment company that owns and develops infrastructure world over for telecom and technology companies having recently also diversifying into energy services.

On December 5, Reliance Communications announced TPG-Tillman had made a non-binding agreement to buy its telecom towers as India’s No. 4 telco sought to pare itsRs 40,000 crore debt. ET was the first to report about TPG-Tillman as the frontrunner for the asset a day before the announcement. TPG, sources said, conducted a thorough due diligence and followed it up with an offer that valued the portfolio at Rs 13,000-Rs 15,000 crore, inclusive of its debt. Ambani is believed to have rejected the low ball offer, insisting that he will stick to the original valuation.

"It has been almost a month and TPG is yet to hear back from Reliance Communications. There is no certainty that these talks will fructify into a firm agreement at the original valuation," said an official privy to the ongoing developments.

Ahuja, also a personal friend of the Ambani family, was expected to manage the operations post sale while TPG was backing his bid, stitching up the financing. One of the people, asking not to be named, said that Tillman wanted more than one financing partner. He added that TPG may ultimately remain a minority partner in the final deal.

Dilligence Issues Sources say that during the due diligence process, TPG found that the company had about 38,000 functioning telecom towers. Nearly 10,000 of those towers cannot accommodate another tenant, because they are either for one occupant in city areas or occupied fully between RCom and Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio Infocomm. But a person close to RCom said in reality that number was closer to 2,000 towers, not 10,000. The person added most of these towers have additional slots for two more tenants that make it monetizeable, noting that telcos are increasing their tower presence as they roll out 4G services.

In July 2013, Reliance Communications had signed a 15-year tower lease agreement with Jio at a rental of approximately Rs 15,000 a month per slot, nearly half that of the ongoing rental rate. The penalty of exiting the contract is too much to warrant it, said a person familiar with details.

As such, TPG found a potential operating profit from the tower company maxing at around Rs 1,000 -1,200 crore annually. But sources close to RCom disputed that, saying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of the tower assets is closer to Rs 1800 crore, same as that of Viom Networks that was sold to American Tower Corp. at an enterprise value of about Rs 21,000 crore on an EBITDA of about Rs 1,850 crore.

"The valuation of RCom's towers will be identical to Viom," the person said.

New Beginnings Mubadala, which for now seems a strong contender, is close to the Indian telecom situation, sources said. It had previously also evaluated RCom's tower assets for an investment

Several people ET spoke with about Ericsson’s India operations, including its current and former employees, said the Stockholm-based firm has reduced headcount in the last one year or so across functions, in line with its global restructuring.